


Rapprochement

by TinyFakeFanficRock



Series: Ad meliora [15]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Decapitated Heads, F/M, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mentions of Legion atrocities, POV Multiple, Tribal Courier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-07 18:54:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18879199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TinyFakeFanficRock/pseuds/TinyFakeFanficRock
Summary: Reconciliation can be a messy process.





	Rapprochement

Nellis was a cure for pride. "Look! The savage girl's back!"

They still threw that word at her, even after she, Cass, and Veronica cleared out their ant problem when they'd first visited; even after Mel treated injuries their own doctor couldn't. And that was what she needed right now: a reminder of exactly what she was. She'd pretended for too long, foolishly gotten attached to the way Craig looked at her as though she were someone worth respecting.

 _You knew exactly what he'd think once he knew._ And still she had let herself hope. Fucking hope. The Legion might have torn pieces off them both, but it didn't mean what was left fit together. _At least it's over with now._

Time to face reality and go back to doing as she was told, which meant ingratiating herself with the Boomers. On their previous visit, once she and her friends had handled the emergencies, Mel had been so put off by the Boomers' sensibilities that she needed to leave. But it wasn't fair to judge them without hearing their story, so this time she decided to start at the museum. Little Pete was elated to help.

His people came from a vault, which made their attitude, especially their fear of outsiders, make a bit more sense -- every vault she'd explored was a cruel, twisted place claiming to be a shelter. Knowing the Boomers spent generations in one still didn't make it much easier to listen to this child tell her happily about how his people blasted their way through anyone they encountered on the surface. Frankly, she was relieved they'd decided to fort up at this old army base instead of continuing to slaughter their way across the land, and a little worried about what they'd do if they actually achieved their dream of flight.

But for now, she moved quietly among them, helping out where she could and sitting quietly on the edges of social gatherings until people got used to seeing her there and started to open up. It felt uncomfortably like what she'd done at White Tank, and she didn't want to think about anything that had happened yesterday, let alone in those dark years.

So she washed dishes, traded recipes, recovered lost toys, picked dogbane, settled the occasional dispute between children, and even learned to crochet. Busy was good; it prevented thought. And when her mind did return to Craig -- _damn it_ \-- she lingered only long enough to remind herself: _You lied to him. You deserve this._

\---

Boone stared at Mel's overturned chair for a good few minutes before deciding that the answer to this problem was definitely whiskey -- no, vodka. Whiskey was her drink.

As he made his way down the bottle, he realized that so much shit fit together now that didn't before. Why she joined up with an asshole like him just because he liked shooting Legion. Why her guard went up when people asked her about her past.

And he couldn't stop thinking about the conversation Raul had struck up a while back. "Hey, Boone. Was the boss married to a total pendejo or something?"

"Huh?" Not only had the question come out of nowhere, Boone also didn't know what _pendejo_ meant. Raul's tone suggested it wasn't good, though.

"Cass and the doc argued over her drinking. He stomped off, and the boss ducked behind a cabinet. And nobody's actually scared of _Arcade_. She learned to do that somewhere else."

He'd immediately dismissed the idea -- Mel could hold her own against anyone who tried to hurt her. It was none of Raul's goddamn business anyway, so Boone just said, "She doesn't talk about back then," and walked away.

But it turned out the old man had been right, and now that Boone knew the truth, he could look back and see a thousand times Mel had tensed, braced, and even flinched at things that were no real threat to someone like her. And some of those times, she'd been facing him. All this time she'd been waiting for him to hurt her, and now he'd finally fucking done it.

He just didn't know what to say, so he didn't say anything, and to her that silence had sounded like rejection. And what he'd said before he knew -- the look on Mel's face -- God, he was such a fucking piece of shit. He downed the rest of the bottle in only a couple gulps.

Boone had no idea how long he'd been sleeping on the kitchen table when Cass shook him awake and offered him some of her usual hangover cure. Whatever the hell was in it, it worked, and he was very grateful right up until she started asking where Mel was.

She hadn't come back. Fuck. He pushed away all the others' attempts to question him and packed up his gear. Good thing the only thing he wanted to do right now was also the only thing he was any good at. He headed south.

\---

Arcade was trying to sleep off a long night when Cass banged on his door. Apparently while he was babysitting a delicate phase of his experiments, all hell had broken loose at the 38. Mel and Rex? Gone since sometime last night. Boone? Just stormed out. 

"So what the hell happened? Did he give anyone any clues?"

She huffed. "Not a fuckin' thing. Raul, Ronnie, and I all tried, but he wouldn't tell us shit. Just told us all to fuck off. And he never talks to Ronnie like that," she added with a hint of both defensiveness and worry.

He mulled it over aloud. "So Mel took the dog and left without saying where she was going -- or, well, anything to the rest of us, -- and Boone was even more miserable than usual and left, too. It's not exactly advanced math: They had a fight while we were out, and it was serious."

Cass's expression grew wary. "What the fuck would they even fight about enough to make her walk?"

"I can think of something, and I think you can, too." He _knew_ she could. Even if her reaction just then hadn't told him Mel had confided in Cass, Mel herself had, which was the only reason he broached the subject at all. 

"What, you think she told him about her asshole 'husband'?" She watched him a minute, probably double-checking to be sure they meant the same thing. When he nodded, she went on, "But why would they fight about that? He hates the Legion, too."

Arcade snorted. "Have you _met_ Boone? Tact is not his strong suit. Who knows what he blurted out when she told him?"

"... you got a point," Cass replied, wincing. "Well, we can't just chase him down and ask him if that's what happened. What if we're wrong? Mel would fucking fillet us if he found that shit out from us."

He shuddered at the idea. "And rightly so."

"So what _are_ we gonna do about it?"

"Who's this 'we'? _I_ was planning to stay in my room reading until she comes back on her own or we run out of food."

"Maybe you hide from shit, but I don't. We need Mel back. House ain't gonna let us sit around drinking his booze forever." Cass now had a hard, stubborn glint in her eyes.

Arcade's first instinct was to snap back, _You do plenty of hiding in the bottom of a bottle_ , but then his brain caught up with him and he realized he was just stinging because she was right, and not only about needing Mel back. "Fine. What are _we_ going to do about it?"

"Gotta find her first. You ask around Freeside, see if anybody there's heard anything. I'll hit up my contacts at the Crimson Caravan and the 188. Bound to find out something. For somebody as quiet as she is, she has a real knack for attracting attention."

\---

About a week later, the buzz at the Crimson Caravan was that some girl named Janet had gotten out of her contract early. Cass dug a little deeper and found out that she'd run off to Nellis to hook up with one of the Boomers. Wouldn't that be suicide? Oh, no, she had one of their suits and everything so they wouldn't blow her up. Left last night after some lady brought her the suit and talked McLafferty into letting Janet go. Well, now. Anything special about that lady? She's the one who talked McLafferty into letting Janet go, and Janet _still got paid_. Yeah, but anything else? Oh, right, she had a dog whose ass-end was made of metal.

But never mind the Boomers inviting someone in, the news was that fuckin' McLafferty had let someone out of a contract early. Yup, that was the goddamn Crimson Caravan for you.

And it was about fucking time they got a lead, because Boone was back and they had a new problem.

\---

Errands done, Mel returned to Nellis, solar panel parts shifting awkwardly on her back every time she looked over her shoulder to check in with Craig. Damn habits. Worse, everything around her was painfully quiet and she couldn't block out her memories anymore.

Kit on the cross, telling her with what little voice he had left that he was sorry for _her_.

Sidewinder's screams the night of the auction and her mangled body in the midden the day after.

Guajillo, slaughtered just for daring to speak to his cousin.

Feisty Bee and kind Aloe, their love for one another transformed into the source of years of torture culminating in their slow, agonizing, humiliating deaths. 

And the one that lingered longest, Zinnia and her choice to run until the collar blew.

Once Mel arrived and emptied her pack, leaving parts with the solar panels, books with the schoolteacher, and toys and comics with the children, Pearl and Loyal summoned her. They actually had a plan to make the terrifying last panel of their mural come to life. Mel was torn: She wanted to see those explosions happen to the Legion, but she _didn't_ want to see them happen to anyone else. Even if she decided to help, she definitely couldn't accomplish the task alone.

But it was time to go back anyway.

Not too far past the shack where the Nellis road met the main road, she spied Cass coming toward her, Edie bobbing along just behind. Mel raised a hand in greeting and watched Rex run to say his own hellos.

"Mel, hey -- oof, hi, buddy, no, shit, _down_ , boy --"

"Rex, sit," Mel said, and the dog clanked to a stop.

"Thanks." Cass's face expression got serious -- and concerned. "Look, Mel, you gotta come back to the 38."

"I know," she replied with a fresh twinge of guilt. It hadn't been fair to the rest of her friends, either, leaving like that. "I'm on my way."

That brightened Cass up again, and Mel felt a little better herself. "Well, damn, that was easier than I thought. So ... why'd you run out?"

"I just needed to think, so I got some work done while I was thinking. Nellis is fonder of us. But it sounds like we should hurry back. What's going on?"

"Boone left this really fucking gross-smelling sack in the lobby a few days ago, he won't let anyone see what's in it, and he says he won't get rid of it till you come back. Arcade's threatening to throw it out anyway before everyone pukes. You should probably find out what's going on before somebody gets shot over it."

Mel blinked a few times. "I -- well, I'm definitely _curious_ now." She picked up her pace.

Five minutes of silence later, she decided to give Cass a little more truth. "I told Craig. About -- before."

"Thought so. What did he even fucking say to you that made you run like that? Do I need to kick him in the dick?"

"No." She didn't feel the need to elaborate further, but that was true, too.

As soon as they entered the lobby of the Lucky 38, Mel's nose involuntarily wrinkled. Cass had definitely been right about the smell. The offending sack sat atop a folded-over rug dragged in from somewhere else -- at least the mess was contained. Craig and Arcade stood nearby, Arcade shouting about how the smell was now spreading through the ventilation system.

Cass broke in. "Okay, asshole, Mel's back. Now what's in the bag?"

Craig's head whipped around, as if he couldn't believe it until he saw Mel himself. After a moment, he replied firmly, "Not gonna talk about it with you two here."

"If it has to do with what I told you before I left, they already know, because they ask more questions than you," Mel reassured him.

"In our defense, so do mole rats."

"Not helping, Cass," muttered Arcade.

"Fine," Craig said, and emptied the sack's contents -- four men's severed heads -- onto the rug amid Cass's cry of _ugh_ and Arcade's gagging. "Legion. Did you know any of them?"

Mel held her nose, stepped forward, and toed them faceup one at a time. She didn't remember many of the other Legionaries from her time at Flagstaff, and if any of them had survived the intervening years of battles, it was unlikely that they'd be patrolling the New Vegas area. So it didn't surprise her that none of these faces were familiar. "No."

His shoulders slumped with visible relief. "Good. Went out to blow off some steam and then realized I might've killed one you wanted to."

"So the only thing to do was bring back their heads, just to be sure?" Arcade said in a slightly strangled voice. "Well, now that you've got your answer, can we _please_ burn this horrifying thing? And possibly this section of the carpet, since we like to be so sure about things around here?"

Arcade was right, of course, but Mel was still touched that Craig had thought enough of her to make sure she got her own justice, and apparently she hadn't kept that entirely off her face.

"And she's _charmed_ by this," Cass announced incredulously. "Fuck, I need a drink."

"I'll join you," said Arcade with a hint of the same disbelief, and they disappeared into the elevator.

Mel and Craig rolled up the sack and its contents in the rug, hefted it into the incinerator chute, then washed up and went to the VIP lounge. She got cold water from the fridge and settled at the bar, opening one bottle and putting the other in front of the stool beside her as an invitation. Craig took it, sat down, and said softly, "Wanted to tell you that what I said before -- it wasn't right. Sorry."

"You weren't wrong about what I was to them. And I'm sorry, too," she replied in the same low tone. "I should have told you before, and it wasn't fair to tie it to Carla. I made it out, yeah, but most of the others just suffered horribly and then died, and they would probably have preferred to skip the suffering. I don't know why I got lucky."

He exhaled heavily. "Hell of a thing to call lucky."

"I'm here, aren't I?" And then words started pouring out of her in a startling torrent: where she was really from, who her people were, and the outline of what had happened to them -- and to her.

"There was a little truth in what I told you before," she concluded. "My son did die in infancy, but of disease. His father -- my owner -- had me call him 'husband', but he's still alive. I tell people I'm a widow so they won't ask too many questions about my past. I wasn't expecting Daisy to seize on it and try to play matchmaker, and once I knew enough about you to be sure you wouldn't turn me in, I didn't know how to tell you."

"Don't blame you." Craig got up and got more drinks -- beer this time. "Didn't exactly tell you the truth, either. Sorry. For that and --" he jerked his head toward where the sack had been -- "that too."

"Don't worry. It was sweet of you to check." _Did I really just say_ sweet _? Dammit, he deserves better than condescension._ Fortunately, Craig didn't seem offended. "But there's only one kill I really want to make myself."

"Who is he?"

Mel took her beer back to the casino entrance, where she'd left her pack, and shuffled through papers until she found _his_ note to the recruits who'd died at Searchlight. She handed it to Craig, then pointed to the signature.

He visibly blanched. "This fucker. Hell."

"Yeah."

"And you still went to The Fort for House. Did you know if he'd be there?"

"I knew he would." She probably should have stopped there, but no point going right back to hiding things. "He invited me there, too. It's how I got in."

" _Jesus._ Mel, you're the goddamn bravest person I know." Craig got a bit of a stricken look at that point, as if he'd said too much. He must have realized it was a silly thing to praise; what she'd done had been more reckless than brave.

But he meant well, so she only shrugged. "I had a job to do. Speaking of, how do you feel about giving the Boomers even more firepower if it gives them incentive to fight the Legion?"

He took a big swig of his beer and said nothing for a long moment. Just when she began to fear she'd alienated him all over again, he touched the back of her hand with two fingertips and said, "I'm listening."


End file.
